One hot tap stopped working - others OK

martindow

After being away for two weeks the hot tap in the kitchen has stopped working - a little water comes out for a few seconds and then it stops running. Other hot taps in the house are fine.

Any suggestions on what to do please?

Slowly_does_it..

Do you have a pressure boiler or is your hot water gravity based?

If gravity based, it MIGHT be that an airlock has built up in the hot water pipe, I cleared this by finding a way of connecting the cold and the hot taps and opening both, this pushed the water back up the hot pipe until most of the air had been pushed out, then opening the hot taps full flushed the remaining bubbles out.

Other ideas - the washer in the tap has stuck in the closed position, opening the tap and knocking it gently might help, but dismantling the tap might be necessary.

martindow

It's a gravity system for water heating so I'll try your method to see if there is an air lock to clear. I think the tap is opening OK as there is a good initial flow for a second or two before it tails off to nothing.

southcoastrgi

I doubt it's an air lock if the rest of the taps are ok, it sounds like the spindle has come out too far inside the tap, easy to fix but you will have to take the tap apart

Mr_Ted

southcoastrgi wrote: »

I doubt it's an air lock if the rest of the taps are ok, it sounds like the spindle has come out too far inside the tap, easy to fix but you will have to take the tap apart

2nd that

martindow

Thought I'd come back with an update. After putting off dealing with it - partly work and partly laziness - it's cured itself and water now runs as it should. Through force of habit I kept opening the tap. Yesterday morning it flowed a little longer than it had and in the evening it had recovered.

Procrastination works sometimes!